1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical wire connections and is particularly concerned with making electrical connections to conductor rods of a subsea electrical connector.
2. Related Art
There are many types of connectors for making electrical connections in hostile or harsh environments, such as underwater or subsea electrical and hybrid electrical and optical connectors which can be repeatedly mated and demated underwater at great ocean depths. These connectors typically consist of releasably mateable plug and receptacle units or connector parts, each attached to cables or other devices intended to be joined by the connectors to form completed circuits. Each electrical or hybrid connector unit contains one or more electrical contacts or junctions for engagement with the junctions in the other unit when the two units are mated together. To completely isolate the contacts to be joined from the ambient environment, one or both parts of these connectors house the contacts in oil-filled, pressure-balanced chambers. Some subsea electrical connectors are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,645,442, 7,959,454, and 8,123,549 of Teledyne Instruments, Inc. Such connector units are provided at opposite ends of subsea electrical cables or twisted wire cables, which may be oil-filled, pressure compensated hoses. In assembling such hoses, cable is typically stripped to expose the wires, and the wires are then soldered into standard solder pots at the rear end of the connector unit, then covered with a boot seal. Electrical solder connections are also used in other subsea applications, such as subsea splice containers.
When soldering a wire connection, the joint becomes rigid as the solder cools. The joint, including solder that has wicked up the wire, is not flexible and develops a mechanically stressed weak point at the junction between the wire and the end of the conductor rod. As a result, wire breakage may occur during the assembly, distribution, installation or operation of subsea products. Additionally, the current soldering process includes use of lead based solder, and lead has been identified as a hazardous substance and future RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliance requirements may restrict its use in subsea applications.
Commercial off-the-shelf crimp connectors which do not require solder connection are not usable for connections to subsea electrical equipment or subsea connector units, because they are not designed for the proper gage of wire and they also would not fit on the conductor rods or pins of subsea connectors without modification to accommodate the required electrical load.